Studies, theories, ideas, notes from the workface and occasional bits of stupidity.

Friday, 25 July 2008

busy?

rather a slow week, or at least it's felt that way - maybe it's the weather. And again, frustratingly, not much going on on the Dip. front. I want to complete my current workbook in the next few days (the distance Dip. Tesol is split up into workbooks), then try and do as much as possible over the summer before I'm inundated by the shitwave of work that inevitably breaks over me come september. So far this week, I've been working on publicity for the PT & FT EFL courses, marketing strategies (too little, too late, in my opinion: The university's sole overseas agancy is about to be closed, meaning that we probably won't be getting much in the way of FT students for the new academic year), and, of course, portfolios. It finally looks like they've crystallised. Basically, the FT programme will use the portfolio in very much the way they were originally designed to be used, vis. a showcase of each student's best work. However, the Programme Leader will set out prior to the start of the programme what work needs to be covered, and from that the minimum number of items that need to be included. On top of that, and to encourage students to work, having a complete portfolio will be in some way a requirement of course completion, and prizes will be given for the best portfolios.For the PT programme, because of time constraints and its more specialised nature, the portfolio will be used more in the way I originally envisaged it, i.e. a way of delivering specific tasks that conform to ECF freamework descriptors and show students the type of tasks they may face in PET, FCE, CAE and CPE. It means we can spread the exam skills workload over the whole of the course, rather than trying to cram it from halfway through the course (don't ask why this is: suffice to say it's a long story involving fundaing regulations for FE).Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with what I've hammered out - now all I have to do is sit back and see if it bloody works.